ICANN says it can't shut down Spamhaus

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said in a statement today that it does not have the ability or authority to comply with a proposed court order that it suspend the Internet service of The Spamhaus Project Ltd. Spamhaus is a volunteer run antispam service.

In a proposed order last Friday, Judge Charles Kocoras of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois called on the organizations responsible for registering the Spamhaus.org Internet address to suspend the organization's Internet service. Both ICANN -- the nonprofit organization set up to manage the domain name system of the Internet -- and Toronto-based Tucows Inc., the Spamhaus.org registrar, are named in the order. ICANN: We can't shut down Spamhaus